A Wild Young Under-Whimsy

In which the random, trashy, pop-cultural musings of Mel are displayed in all their superficial glory.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

The Wolf of Lygon Street. Since I am participating in an Oscars roundtable for Junkee, today I figured I had better see The Wolf of Wall Street. I missed the preview screening because in its wisdom, the distributor had scheduled it at the same time as another studio's screening and like Jordan Belfort himself, gave zero fucks. And because it goes for three hours I was really daunted by how I was going to find the time to see it.

But that's not to say I wasn't interested. I've read Jordan Belfort's memoir, on which the film is based, and jeez it's an entertaining read. Here are some bits I highlighted because I couldn't believe I was actually reading them:

"after seeing her on the delivery table with her pussy looking big enough to hide Jimmy Hoffa, I hadn't been too much in the mood." (My note: "You have to wonder what his wife and children make of this book.")

"I smiled at Wigwam, who had just confirmed what I already knew – that he was not a wartime consigliere and would be of little help to Danny in matters like these." ("I love the way Jordan views his life through the prism of pop culture.")

"The company was bleeding cash like a hemophiliac in a rosebush." (Oh Jesus. Also, LOL)

I also read an interview with Scorsese and DiCaprio about the film, and a fascinating feature about what Jordan Belfort is up to now. (Still giving zero fucks.) And here is an interesting guide to how the film diverges from real life. One thing they don't mention in there is that, in a film containing so much casual misogyny and homophobia and rampant drug-taking and law-breaking, they cared enough to change a character's name from 'Wigwam' to 'Rugrat' – presumably because they didn't want to be racist.

But anyway, tonight I had a Hot Desk Fellows get-together at the Wheeler Centre and then after that I figured I would get some dinner on Lygon Street and then go see the 9:20pm Wolf of Wall Street at Cinema Nova.

So told various people I was going to do this, and then I got my ticket and I showed it to the usher and I helped some other patrons find the cinema and then I sat down in the cinema and watched the movie.

I am telling you this boring procedural story so you understand how ridiculous I felt upon exiting the film about an hour ago and realising that all along I had been wearing this shirt:

I started LOLing to myself as I walked along that purple corridor and down the stairs and out onto Lygon Street. What must those people have thought of me? Maybe they thought I was some crazed Jordan Belfort fan who'd been so excited about finally seeing her hero onscreen that she'd worn her special wolf shirt.

Imagine me once more, saying to the ticket seller, "One ticket for The Wolf of Wall Street" and then her giving me this supercilious up-and-down gaze and me thinking it was just because she was a film hipster who felt herself to be above the schmos who actually pay to see movies, but no, it was because she thought I was so lame to be wearing a costume. Like, would I be wearing blue when I went to see Blue Is the Warmest Colour?

Or, worse, what if they thought I am generally super into wolves? Like, a Crazy Wolf Lady?

Imagine if I were indeed a Crazy Wolf Lady and my house was full of stuffed toy wolves and wolf posters and wolf throw rugs, and when I led you seductively to my bedroom you were confronted with this turgidifying sight:

Or maybe this; I haven't figured out which I prefer.

And because I am so into wolves, I consume any cultural products with vague wolf references. Like, you look at my CD collection and it's all Steppenwolf and Wolfmother and Yelawolf, and my bookshelf has Naomi Wolf and Tom Wolfe and Virginia Woolf, and my DVDs are all like Dances with Wolves and Teen Wolf and Red Riding Hood and that Jack Nicholson film Wolf and White Fang and The Grey which is that one where Liam Neeson punches a wolf.

And I have been absolutely jonesing to see this new wolf film and so I wore my special wolf shirt.

The most ridiculous thing of all is that while I was seeing The Wolf of Wall Street tonight there was a preview screening of Wolf Creek 2, so I would have looked just as ridiculous if I'd gone to that instead.

Monday, February 17, 2014

Moving on. I feel like I'm better at managing my moods and emotions these days, so that rather than a depressive episode that lasts weeks or months, I just have a bad day here and there. I have a Post-It on my pinboard that reminds me to think of "THREE GOOD THINGS THAT HAPPENED TODAY" in order to avoid the catastrophic thinking that can shut me down.

Today I'm trying to struggle out of the mire and make it a Good Day, but it comes off the back of several Bad Days, beginning on Thursday with the announcement of the Stella Prize longlist, which I was not on. Not that I expected to be: I have come to realise that I have not written a prize-winning book. But you know that secret inner part of yourself in which your wildest fantasies never die? Well, that part of me still hoped, and was grievously disappointed.

What I'm really mourning is the sense of excitement and optimism I once felt about my book. I have terrible self-esteem in most ways except regarding my writing. I genuinely think I produce great work, and while I was frustrated with the compromises I had to make in order to satisfy my editor and publisher that Out of Shape was marketable, I think the book is stronger for them.

When I finished the book I couldn't wait to see how it was received. I was so proud of it, sure I'd nailed a certain zeitgeist and as the book's subtitle reveals, debunked various stupid myths about the topic. I fantasised that the book would be taken up as a cult text about clothing size and fit. I felt I'd join and transform a public affairs conversation. I would email my publisher asking them to enter my book in various awards.

This was a time I now look back on as comically innocent. Aw, she thought her first book would be a runaway hit? Bless!

What I should have anticipated, but didn't, was that I had written a Chick Book. This meant that I was excluded from almost all the conversations I wanted to participate in because clothing is 'fashion' and fashion is 'lifestyle' and 'lifestyle' is for women and is not part of either the literary conversation or the current-affairs conversation. The frustrating thing is that I fought for the inclusion of men's clothes and men's bodies, and actually flagged sexism in the book:

It’s probably because of my sensitivity to being humiliated that I really want to distance this project from the pervasive belief that writing about clothes is vapid and unintelligent. […] Is a book about size and fit only for silly chicks? Of course not. Fashion – as opposed to clothes – is the industrial cycle of design, media and retail, which constantly renews itself to drive demand for new garments. It’s a dynamic, wealthy business sector that engages with politics, ethics and social ideologies. To intelligent, discerning people, fashion offers plenty of food for thought.

However, most fashion writing – from glossy magazines to weekend newspapers and the increasingly crowded blogosphere – is explicitly framed as ‘lifestyle’. That is, it’s all about the role clothing plays in an individual’s consumerist fantasies. The dichotomy between ‘quality journalism’ and ‘lifestyle pap’ is uncomfortably sexist, but the language of much fashion writing is undeniably gormless, burbling nonsense: ‘a pant’, ‘a smoky eye’, ‘statement pieces’, ‘pops of colour’, ‘It bags’ and other ‘directional’, ‘on-trend’ ‘must-haves’ the writer is currently ‘all about’.

There are ways to write a feminised book and still be taken seriously – make it about feminism, or politics, or crime, or health, or family – but what I should have realised is that a book about clothes, no matter how thoughtful it strives to be, will never be thought of as a book of note, a book about ideas.

And I didn't galvanise the women's lifestyle press, either. My book didn't have a bright, breezy message of female self-love and nor did I lobby the garment industries to change their ways to accommodate 'real women'. Despite all the personal anecdotes I grudgingly shoehorned in, it was not a memoir, and I was not an aspirational, relatable narrator. I was mainly interested in history, ideology and culture, and peevishly unwilling to comfort readers with easy conclusions.

Out of Shape fell between categories in almost every sense. Despite its failure to meet my expectations I'm proud of it, and I'm grateful that my publisher saw the value in such a weird book. I have to remind myself that it's still out there waiting to be discovered; books don't drop off the face of the earth after they stop being new. I mean, so many of the books I read myself are up to a few years old because I just can't get to everything when it first comes out.

But I feel sad when I think of the hopes I had for it, and am determined to avoid those bad feelings by never writing anything that diffuse and nerdy again. I want to make money from writing, I want my writing to influence public conversations and I want to win awards, and you just don't get that by applying high concepts to low topics, like I did in Out of Shape.